The convergence of domestic violence, feminism, and marriage in literature is a profound criticism of the institutions of society that structure women’s lives. The issues converge in Toni Morrison’s Sula and Joyce Carol Oates’ A Widow’s Story to highlight the complexity of woman’s identity against the backdrop of patriarchal marriage and the ubiquitous state of domestic violence. The present paper explores how these writers portray the efforts women have to make to balance their relationships, the impacts of social pressure, and striving to be independent in the midst of violence. The paper aims at examining how women’s autonomy and decision-making are portrayed, and how race, class, and cultural context impact the lives of women; hence the study provides a critical analysis of feminism in the selected texts and their cultural significance. The research methodology used for the study has been reading and examining specific passages of the selected books, to locate feminist themes such as trauma, autonomy, and community, and quantifying their significance in terms of feminist discourse, character motivation, and gendered symbolism connected to identity. Two literary theories have been used on the work: the feminist Literary Criticism that interprets how gender influences literature and representations of women, with particular interest in power dynamics, voice, and agency; then Intersectionality, which interprets how various social identities (race, class, sexuality) intersect and affect people’s experiences, particularly of poor women.